Abraham Lincoln, Volume II eBook

Virginia was admitted into statehood, the organization
which had been previously established by the loyal
citizens of the original State was maintained in the
rest of the State, and Governor Pierpoint was recognized
as the genuine governor of Virginia, although few
Virginians acknowledged allegiance to him, and often
there were not many square miles of the Old Dominion
upon which the dispossessed ruler could safely set
his foot. For the present he certainly was no
despot, but in the future he might have usefulness.
He preserved continuity; by virtue of him, so to speak,
there still was a State of Virginia.

Somewhat early in the war large portions of Tennessee,
Louisiana, and Arkansas were recovered and kept by
Union forces, and beneath such protection a considerable
Union sentiment found expression. The President,
loath to hold for a long time the rescued parts of
these States under the sole domination of army officers,
appointed “military governors."[55] The anomalous
office found an obscure basis among those “war
powers” which, as a legal resting-place, resembled
a quicksand, and as a practical foundation were undeniably
a rock; the functions and authority of the officials
were as uncertain as anything, even in law, possibly
could be. Legal fiction never reached a droller
point than when these military governorships were
defended as being the fulfillment by the national
government “of its high constitutional obligation
to guarantee to every State in this Union a republican
form of government!"[56] Yet the same distinguished
gentleman, who dared gravely to announce this ingenious
argument, drew a picture of facts which was in itself
a full justification of almost any scheme of rehabilitation;
he said: “The state government has disappeared.
The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved;
the Judiciary is in abeyance.” In this
condition of chaos Mr. Lincoln was certainly bound
to prevent anarchy, without regard to any comicalities
which might creep into his technique. So these
hermaphrodite officials, with civil duties and military
rank, were very sensibly and properly given a vague
authority in the several States, as from time to time
these were in part redeemed from rebellion by the
Union armies. So soon as possible they were bidden,
in collaboration with the military commanders in their
respective districts, to make an enrollment of loyal
citizens, with a view to holding elections and organizing
state governments in the customary form. The
President was earnest, not to say pertinacious, in
urging forward these movements. On September 11,
1863, immediately after the battle of Chattanooga,
he wrote to Andrew Johnson that it was “the
nick of time for reinaugurating a loyal state government”
in Tennessee; and he suggested that, as touching this
same question of “time when,” it was worth
while to “remember that it cannot be known who
is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what
he will do.” He warned the governor that